


Awakenings

by a_la_grecque



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/pseuds/a_la_grecque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Greythorne is getting ready to celebrate her eleventh birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awakenings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cmshaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/gifts).



It was a very difficult thing being ten, Alice Greythorne decided. All the adults thought you were old enough to behave like a grown up, but not old enough to ask questions about the things you found interesting. Perhaps being eleven would be easier, but she wasn’t holding out much hope.  

 

She still had some time before she found out the answer, her birthday wasn’t until the next day. She decided the best option to keep her out of trouble on her last day of being ten was to escape from the house entirely. Immediately after breakfast she made a break for it, stopping only in the kitchens to wheedle some carrot tops from the cook, who was not above being beguiled by the pleading eyes of “the young Miss”. 

 

As soon as she was decently out of sight of all the windows she started running towards the dell. It was far too late even for the bluebells now, but she had her own special reasons for visiting. Quite apart from the fact that it was decently private, she had been cultivating a relationship for some weeks with some young rabbits, helped by whatever vegetables she could scrounge from cook or steal from the kitchen garden. 

 

She’d always had a way with small creatures, perhaps because of her high levels of patience. Her governess’ training in good manners was equally useful for gaining the trust of wild animals - she had a lot of experience in sitting still and quiet. The young rabbits were quite used to her now, and would hop into her lap to collect food from her apron. She was working up the courage to try stroking them, and she thought today could be the right time to try it. 

 

She settled herself against her favourite tree and arranged a tempting display of greens for her small friends. She often visited at this time so she expected they would appear soon. Before long, she spotted the small twitchy noses appearing from under the bush where their burrow was located. She slowed her breathing and tried not to tense too much. One of them was much bigger, and by far the bravest. He emerged into the dell, and sat back on his hind paws, his ears pricked and listening hard. He took two tentative steps towards her and the leafy tops hanging over the folds of her dress and then stopped abruptly. His eyes bulged in fear and then he was gone, turning and scrabbling back under the bush and taking his shyer siblings with him. 

 

Alice breathed out a long sigh of disappointment. She looked around but there was nothing that should have startled the young ones. She crawled over to the bush and pushed the carrot tops underneath, hoping to tempt them back but there was no sign of movement. She sighed again, usually she could rely on the rabbits to keep her company for an hour or more. Now the time until lunch stretched out endlessly, and she could feel the sun’s heat penetrating through the trees overhead, the day was going to be stifling. 

 

She lay on her back and squinted into the bright light dappling through the leaves. Her options were limited. She’d like to go to the rose garden and play there, but she still remembered her last misadventure there. She’d hoped mother and father might be a little understanding about her desire to play in the fountain on a hot day, but it wasn’t to be. The heady aroma of the roses always made her feel a little strange anyway, like she was sliding into somewhere else, another time or a distant land. It wasn’t a bad feeling, exactly, almost thrilling, but perhaps she was getting too grown up for such strange fancies. 

 

She rolled onto her stomach and let her thoughts drift away, and before long her eyes were closing too. She wasn’t asleep, not really, she could see the trees all around her and smell the warm grass tickling her chin, she could hear the flies buzzing past and she could see the lady in the pale dress… She sat up abruptly, and rubbed her eyes. Had she been dreaming?  She could see something fluttering in the woods ahead. It couldn’t be mother, she always claimed the woods were too muddy; and none of the servants would wear a dress like that. There were no visitors expected, so who could it be? 

 

She scrambled to her feet and ran through the trees, following the elusive woman. As she headed towards the pond she was starting to think she’d dreamed it all, but then she spotted the lady again, heading towards the ice house. Alice was on the verge of calling out when the lady simply disappeared. At that same moment she heard the dinner gong ringing from the house. Much as she wanted to investigate, she knew there would be trouble if she didn’t answer that bell. 

 

Lunch was a miserable affair, she was wondering about the lady and made the mistake of asking about hauntings. She’d heard some of the maids talking about a white lady they’d seen in one of the bedrooms. 

“Superstitious nonsense,” father spluttered, and spent the rest of the meal complaining about the frivolous ideas she’d supposedly been filling her head with.  

She knew she shouldn’t have asked. The lady didn’t feel ghostly, but she’d given Alice that same strange feeling she got from the smell of the roses, a tingling feeling all the way through her body. 

 

She hoped to get away again after lunch to investigate the ice house, but mother and the governess had other ideas. She was stuck working on a sewing project all afternoon, and nothing seemed to go right. Her needle squeaked and she pricked her finger dozens of times, while her mother’s Pekingese spent the whole time yapping and snarling, and finally disgraced herself by nipping at mother’s ankles. It was too much, and Alice begged permission to go and play her piano instead. 

 

That didn’t go right either, her fingers fumbled over the keys and everything seemed slightly out of tune. Her head ached and the air inside the house was stickily oppressive, and in the end she gave up playing altogether and rested her hot forehead against the lacquered lid of the piano. The governess found her there sometime later and sent her to bed with a nursery supper, muttering ominously about “overexcitement”. 

 

Alice slept fitfully that night, at first the light filtering through the curtains was too bright, then her bedclothes were too hot, then she woke up in the night feeling chilled and huddled under the blankets. The sun was already well up when she finally woke in the morning, but she could tell it was still very early.  _ My birthday _ , she thought, and couldn’t stay in bed a second longer. She pulled her wrapper around her and crept down the stairs. She couldn’t even hear any sounds of activity in the kitchens, it must be even earlier than she thought. 

One of the garden doors was open and she stole through it, following some nameless impulse. The grass was heavily dewed, a shock for her bare feet but not an entirely unpleasant one. She walked back towards the pond, the scent of roses suddenly strong in her nostrils.  _ But the rose garden is on the other side of the house _ she thought, and then she saw her again, the lady, standing by the ice house. She raised her hands in welcome as Alice walked towards her. 

 

“Greetings, Old One”

 

“But I’m only eleven, that’s not so old.”

 

“No indeed,” the lady laughed, like a tinkling of bells, “but you’re an Old One all the same. Like me, now tell me child, do I look old?”

 

Alice didn’t say anything, she’d always been taught not to be rude and the lady did look old, with pale hair and skin like faded rose petals. But then, her eyes… her eyes were different, and then she smiled and colour flushed into her cheeks and Alice thought should couldn’t be too many years older than she was herself. 

 

“I don’t know,” Alice said.

 

The lady laughed again. “That’s a very good answer.”

 

“Who are you?” 

 

“And that’s a very good question. But I think you have a name for me already.”

 

“I’ve just been calling you the lady, in my head.”

 

“Well then, I shall be the Lady.”

 

“But who are you, really?”

 

“I have many names, and some day you will know them all, but for now…”

 

Pictures flashed into Alice’s mind: The moon, and the Lady. A temple, a church, crowds of people, now adoring and now angry, the Lady in a host of different ages, a newborn child, a crone. 

 

“I… I don’t understand, in my head, I saw…” 

 

“I know. It will become clear, I promise. But now, we must go through the doors.” 

 

The Lady gestured towards the ice house. Alice didn’t understand, there was nothing in there but spiders. 

 

“Open the doors.”

 

“All right,” Alice said, and cautiously pushed them open, expecting the usual musty smell to waft out.  

 

She didn’t know what the doors opened, but it wasn’t the old ice house. It was a great cavernous room, full of light and sound and people. Alice had never seen such a great variety of people - old, young, men, women, in all manner of strange costumes. She saw a woman who looked just like the picture of Cleopatra in her history book, and a man covered in tattoos with feathers in his hair. And then, rising above them all, a hawk-nosed man with the fiercest eyes Alice had ever seen. 

 

“Welcome to our newest recruit,” he said, “Welcome into the Light.” 

 

“Greetings, Old One, Greetings” The whispers came from every corner of the room, a rising murmur of welcome that frightened and thrilled her all at once, and then she realised that no one’s lips were moving. With a gasp she stepped back, and felt the Lady’s skirts brushing against her back, and then her arms forming a protective circle around Alice’s neck.

 

“Don’t worry,” a real whisper this time, she could feel the Lady’s breath tickling her ear, “There’s a marvellous book in your library that will explain everything.” 

  
The Lady stepped away again, then reached for her hand. “But for now, it’s time to celebrate your birthday.”

 

 


End file.
